Shiv-Naresh: India's emerging and most preferred sports apparel manufacturing brand
Since 1987, Shiv-Naresh is moulding the fate of Indian Athletes with its cutting edge innovations for assembling one of the Country's best Sports Apparels and Equipments. Shiv-Naresh have own percept, "From Indian, By Indian, To Indian" which is the chief driving component to give our closest to perfect.
Exemplary, refined, and expertly curated, 'Shiv-Naresh' is a definitive goal for the present sports persons individual. From head riggings to hand gloves, from T-Shirts to footwear, we administer Whole Caboodle.
The reason behind its popularity with sportspersons and teams is its 75-year-old chairman and founder RK Singh, who has himself been an athlete. He remembers how he had to go to Patiala to buy the right kind of shorts when he was young.
Have An Exceptional Eye For What's Next And a Passionate Drive To Surpass Expectations, Shiv-Naresh
We have always believed in providing our sportspersons with the best-quality clothing. I even have myself been a sportsperson. I started this company with my wife Kusum in 1980 and, at the present , we employ around 600 people,” RK Singh told with a way of satisfaction in an interview.
The firm is named after his two sons—Shiv and Naresh. The elder, Shiv, takes care of marketing and sales, while Naresh is responsible of production. He originated a small factory -cum-shop in 1987 and till 1991, operations were carried out from there.
When demand increased, the factory was shifted to wide-ranging place at Samaypur Badli on the outskirts of Delhi. then , there was no looking back for Shiv-Naresh because it became the go-to brand for athletes across sporting disciplines.
“Yes, I agree that we haven’t been too aggressive on the marketing front but in the past we never felt that there was a need to do that. All the players and sports bodies are aware of our products. Players at the grassroots as well as international level use our products. So we never thought it necessary to advertise our products."
“But after we started our association with movies, we realised the potential of the medium and with social media’s importance increasing every day, we have decided to focus on our marketing”, RK Singh told to ET Times in an interview.
Shiv-Naresh now Brag of five factories and have s strong presence on e-commerce websites like Amazon and Flipkart.
“For more than 3-Decades, we have worked to implement the best possible shopping encounter, encouraging our consumers to express their style- not just buy apparel. We are India's leading retailer offering compelling services to men and women since ages”, said Managing Director, Shiv Prakash Singh.
Shiv-Naresh, has usually taken up new tasks to encourage sports in the country in addition to enhance the bar for Indian sports. Earlier they organised an online Kabaddi Challenge which turned into a step in the identical course and turned out to be the first original social media task of this scale - reaching greater than 1,000,000 people throughout cities.
The Kabaddi Video Challenge was pretty simple, and therefore, attracted masses of enthusiasts throughout the country. From young adults to office goers, from ladies to boys, every body turned into hooked on to this unique sports activities promotion social media campaign.
“Everyone is aware of us in the Indian sports fraternity. Even the common man knows and always aware that a brand like Shiv-Naresh exists which manufactures high-quality apparel at inexpensive prices. We have been related to Hindi movies as a sponsor for the past Six years. We started out with the Priyanka Chopra-starrer 'Mary Kom' and our cutting-edge affiliation become with 'Azhar', for which we've got suitable mileage,” Shiv says.
Recently In Panga, Kangana Ranaut plays the role of national-level Kabaddi player and is seen wearing Shiv Naresh Kabaddi Jersey.
From Commonwealth Games to Asian Games and even in the biggest sporting event in the world i.e. Olympic games, Shiv-Naresh have been the official apparel partner for long period of time.
They are known for sponsoring the legendries like Mary Kom, Abhinav Bindra, Karnam Malleswari and the Indian hockey team.
Shiv-Naresh have been sponsored to many big leagues and individual franchise like Pro kabaddi league, Mohun Bahan which is renowned i-league football club and also the official apparel partner to Indian hockey team.
In an Exclusive interview with Indian Economist Mr. RK Singh and his son Mr. Shiv Singh who're the proprietors of Shiv Naresh to apprehend how the company carved out a spot for itself as a sporting brand amidst competition from established international brands like Nike and Adidas. The interview is below.
1) How did you come up with the idea of starting Shiv Naresh?
RK Singh: I wanted to buy certain sporting apparel in Delhi but there were no outlets nearby (in the 1970s). I had to go to Patiala just for a pair of shorts, so I started to learn tailoring – basic cutting and casing. One thing led to another and I ended up opening Shiv Naresh in 1980. Back then, we operated the store from my home.
Shiv Singh: In fact, it was my mother who started stitching apparel. She taught my father the basics. She is the real inspiration behind Shiv Naresh. It is her business acumen that we have inherited.
2) What were some of the challenges you faced?
Shiv Singh: We always worked within our financial limits, not seeking to expand our business by renting huge outlets. We utilised whatever investments we had to develop our products and did not face much competition from big brands because our market is different from theirs. They mainly target consumers while our product is purely marketed to sportspeople at this point.
3) How did you manage to market Shiv Naresh to eminent sports personalities?
R.K. Singh: Mary Kom was a child when she came to us for sponsoring her sportswear. So were Sushil Kumar and Vijender Singh. I’m 75 now so you can imagine why I say that they were kids (laughs). It so happened that they performed well and continued wearing our apparel. I guess that it is also a testimony to the quality of our products.
Shiv Singh: No one knew Mary Kom or Abhinav Bindra before they won laurels in their respective fields. Prominent sporting brands seldom endorse young talent, primarily because they don’t know about them. We are passionate that way and we have good networking in the sporting community since my dad was an athlete. Whenever there is a game or a boxing match, we meet and talk and get to know them personally.
4) How do you maintain the quality of your products?
Shiv Singh: We have been associated with all the major sporting teams for the past 30 odd years and have built a good rapport with all those players. They give us feedback on how we could improve our products. Sometimes, they bring sportswear from abroad and we develop our products to match those. We also carry out our own research.
5) You have currently entered the footwear market which is highly competitive. How do you plan on competing against international brands?
Shiv Singh: Right now, we are focusing on making specific shoes for each sporting activity like boxing or wrestling. Most of our sales are through online outlets. Our next plan is to make jogging shoes. On an average, a sporting retail outlet has 30% of its turnover from garments and 70% from shoes. Once we release jogging shoes, we will enter the franchise business model. We don’t have a significant product presence in the consumer market yet and once we develop that, we will deal with competition.
6) Did you ever dream of Shiv Naresh becoming such a success? What is your future plan and vision for the company?
RK Singh: No, never in my life. It’s God’s grace that we have performed this well. We have a very simple vision: We want to ensure that our products are of the best quality and are affordable at reasonable rates to all consumers alike.
